Nora - Embracing an Erotic Life

On a Sunday evening nearly a month after our evening with Chad and Lily, just as I was preparing to leave his apartment after a quiet dinner, Beri asked whether I had an interest in viewing some of his own erotic photos, ones that he had taken of other people. He said that judging by my reactions to the foreign films, he thought I might find his photos arousing -- if I felt I wanted to be aroused again.

He told me that if I wished he would show me a half dozen of his own photos on my next visit. If I found them of high interest, I could see more later. Beri added, "You will let me know if these photographs please you, if you find them exciting, if you want to see more. I won't push. What moves me is not shared by everyone. And probably many who share such interests would not acknowledge it."

I told Beri as we finished dinner that I would like to see a first set of his photos and would consider later whether I wanted more, that after the films we had viewed together I did not think I would be shocked or offended.

I had never viewed a personal collection of erotic pictures and in this case I would be seeing them with the person who created them. While I did not know what to anticipate I felt certain Beri wanted me to see these photos and thought they would arouse me. I was coming to better understand that arousing people was what he most enjoyed. Perhaps he had concluded that after my time with Chad and Lily I was not ready for another sexual engagement. So a week later, after leaving a lecture on Modigliani, I suggested we go to his apartment to view some of his erotic photographs. "Let's go now'" I said. "I want to see your photos. I am ready for you to share something new with me again."

At Beri's apartment, he fixed us drinks and we carried them down a hallway where he unlocked the door to a small room I had not seen before. It was furnished with a couch, two chairs, an easel, and several large grey metal cabinets with shallow flat file drawers. Shelves around the room were filled mainly with archival quality grey or black photo storage boxes. We sat on the couch together and sipped our drinks.

Beri seemed nervous and I guessed he was uncertain how to introduce the photographs to me. After a pause he said, "Nora, I do not want to offend you or embarrass myself in showing you some of my own photographs tonight. I could tell you a good deal before we begin about how my erotic photographs come about and about the people and places in them. But this really is a case where a picture or two (or six is what I have for you tonight) is better than many words. You should tell me if you want me to pause or stop. It might have made more sense for me to offer you a joint rather than a drink at this point. In any case, I will go ahead."

So we began that night what over the next several months would become my frequent exposure to a special kind of erotic photography. Beri's own photographs aroused me as much as the films had. But this was even more personal because these were photographs that Beri had planned, arranged, produced, and prepared to show to others, and now to me. These revealed more about, as he had once mentioned about "what really moves me." Would I be moved in the same way?

Beri asked me to sit on the couch. He opened a wide shallow drawer in one of the grey cabinets and removed six items. At first glance all the photos appeared to be in color, matted on grey or cream board, each roughly 18 by 24 inches. Over the next half hour he placed the photographs, one at a time, on an easel in front of us. Each time after a minute or so of viewing the photo together, Beri would turn toward me to judge my reaction, often to ask me to describe it.

The first photo was of a blond full bodied woman, nude, reclining on a couch, her legs crossed at the ankle, a flower in her hair. A pose reminiscent of Manet's famous Olympia that so shocked proper society in Paris in 1865. In this photograph the woman's sex was not obvious except for a puff of very light hair above it. She had very pale skin, pink nipples, pink cheeks. Probably Scandinavian or maybe German. Behind the couch stood a man in a business suit. Her husband? Her lover? The photographer? No, that would have been Beri. The relationship was unclear. The man was looking down into her face and she was looking at him. She was smiling, seemingly pleased to be admired by a significant other. He appeared relaxed, perhaps with a hint of pride at being with this lovely woman who was confidently revealing her beauty to him.

"What do you think of this,Nora?" Beri asked me.

Not a hard question for me. "Nice, I said. Pleasing. Happy. A well dressed man and an undressed woman. A traditional male gaze, though she is looking back and smiling. Still, a bit derivative."

"True," Beri nodded. "Nice is a good word for it. But not very exciting. Not stimulating for the modern viewer. For us, comfortable. Mild."

I nodded.

Beri removed the first photo and placed a second one on the easel. Same man, same woman. He was behind the couch as before but this time bending over her shoulder to give him a better vantage point, again gazing down at her. And this time the woman was seated facing the viewer, looking straight at us. She has spread her legs enough so that this time we could see the folds of her sex, seemingly waiting to be parted. Perhaps already a suggestion of wetness there. A slight glistening. Her hands are in front of her, just above her sex, and cupped in them is a large bright pink dildo. Again she is smiling. This time at us. Happy in her situation and for what was to happen next.

And what was to happen next, I remember thinking? Would she wait for the man to join her on the couch and begin with his fingers or his mouth to prepare her for her toy? Would he ask her to use it to excite him and then watch her pleasure herself? Whose needs were driving this scene? What was paramount for her? For him? What would they be saying to one another while one of them was employing the big bright pink shaft substitute? What would they do next, and after that, and after that?

I realized that my answer to Beri's next "What do you think of this one, Nora?" would be more complicated and less certain. My response would be tentative confirming for him my uncertainly as to what I thought and what I was willing to say. I wanted to delay a response, to be given longer for my mind and my body to take this in. But I did not want to disappoint him.

"Beri, I think I am beginning to grasp your point in showing these photos to me. Almost like a teacher. Perhaps to help me appreciate the difference between the art of the nude and an erotic work of art. Perhaps to push me to recognize how much my critical art perspective varies from my personal and sexual reaction. Maybe I am beginning to see what you are trying to do for me in sensitizing me, educating me. Maybe you think of it as freeing me. Maybe I will agree. I might come to think of it that way too. I'm not sure.

"Will you show me the other photos you selected? I am very curious now to see what more you have for me. Even eager. Do you like knowing I feel that way?"

The next photo was of an Asian woman, presumably Japanese given the look of the room and the few furnishings. As in the first photo, which Beri explained was of friends of his in Amsterdam, this new woman again was nude, again reclining on a couch. Her body was turned at an angle so that we see her front. Her back leg is raised to reveal the dark silky hair around her sex and just a glimpse of her slit. Again a man in a business suit is standing behind the couch looking down at her. Beri left the photo in place for awhile, saying nothing.

"Your opinion please, Nora?" Beri then asked. "How is this one different from the Amsterdam photo?"

"Almost the same, Beri. Perhaps harder to speculate about their relationship and their thoughts. Less transparent. More mysterious. A different cultural tradition and the Asian mind and all that. More exotic even though more sparse in setting. Mildly erotic but in a 19th century painting sort of way."

Beri removed that photograph and replaced it with a second one.

"Here is a second version, Nora. As you examine it ask yourself, if we were to look again at the first photo of this couple will we understand it better? Maybe what the man and woman are thinking. About their relationship?"

I began to take in the differences. The same woman in about the same pose. Apparently but not certainly the same man in the same suit. But now, the man in the suit is in the foreground of the photo. His back is to us. We can assume that his eyes can take in the whole scene, as we can. Now, at end of couch, near the woman's head, stands a handsome young Asian boy. Naked. His penis is of medium size, and already very hard. He is looking at the reclining woman, obviously an older woman, but his face shows no emotion. She is looking at his sex. He is aroused, presumably so is she. I wondered, what might happen next. What is their relationship? What is the role here of the husband? Or is she the man's mistress? Has he procured the boy for her? Which of them brought the boy to the scene?"

"I like this second photo, Beri. The fact that there are three people makes it much more erotic. More options to consider. Who is in charge, if any one person. What does he or she want? Hope for? Can all of them be satisfied by what will happen or is one of them at least bound to be disappointed? This adult pair is also more interesting here than in the first set of two photos. More erotic perhaps because less familiar. This image will stay with me. The woman and the boy most of all. I will continue to speculate about his role and his expectations. And again, who and what convinced these three people to be in this place together.

Beri told me he had a third set of photos to share, that this will be enough for me to view this first time. He hopes to talk again after I have considered my reactions to these particular photos, and to viewing these kinds of photos with him. His photos.

The next photo was of a woman and a man, presumably her husband, standing together at the left side of a huge fireplace with large logs burning. She is beautiful, tall, regal, dressed in heavy clothing as though it is winter outside. Perhaps a brocade in dark reds, golds and browns. But elegant, luxurious. A large painting above the fireplace is of a mansion on a canal. Presumable this is in Venice and probably the painting is of the house in which these people are standing. Maybe they both are from distinguished Venetian families. Perhaps he is the older, wealthier, more influential. But he also is shorter, less impressive to look at, and she is more striking in every regard. They stand together, seemingly proud, content in this place and moment and with one another. No hint of eroticism in this photograph. Nothing to discuss. Beri paused only briefly.

He placed a second photo on the easel. Of the same couple but she is now seated in a chair rather than standing left of the fireplace. She has hiked her heavy skirts up above her waist. Her legs are spread wide. The photographer must have stood in front of the fireplace looking to his left at her. Her husband is on his knees with his mouth on her sex. She appears content as if he has long learned to satisfy her in this way, perhaps in this same place, perhaps to prepare her for something more, for someone else. She has one hand on his head as he works. She is leaning back, not looking at him. Rather, to her right, stands a tall black man. Naked, his large cock hanging down in a curved position, not yet fully hard. Her right hand holds the cock, but gently, and she is looking at it with the beginning of smile, perhaps asking, "Do you want me to continue?" Or perhaps, more selfishly, "He will soon finish preparing me. Then you may have what you want." What does she want, this Desdemona with her own Venetian Moor waiting. These are among the possibilities this photograph inspired me to consider.

James, I left that first time with Beri and his photographs feeling very unsettled. Why did he invite me to see them? Presumably he wanted me to see them and like them and probably he wanted me to come to crave seeing more like them. What were his motives beyond the sex, but without intercourse, we already were having?

As the days passed I became infected by those images, something like a continuing low grade fever. I thought about them often during the day and almost every night. Always they excited me sexually. I began to touch myself in bed as I fantasized about them, always beginning with the central couple in each series. What was their real relationship at that point and in that situation? Did they have sex often, or at all? Did they like fucking together? What, for example, had they done the night before? Had the woman had sex with her partner or with someone else? And what would they do after the photos? Were they always seeking new partners, new pleasures. Was Beri an enabler, a facilitator? And if the couples in the photos were friends of his, in what way? Had he had sex with the women? Or the men? What did he want beyond the obvious charge from making the photographs?

I became driven to fantasize about the many possible next steps, all of them sexual, almost always from the perspective of the women in the photos. Putting myself in her place. It was intoxicating. Thinking about sex with the young Asian. With the black man in Venice. Those were exotic partners to picture myself with and my imagination ran wild. Not so much with the less attractive husbands/partners in those series. Did the couples recognize themselves as decadent, depraved? I knew that I would not be able to resist returning to Beri for explanations. To try to understand what he was about and how he thought about my involvement. But mainly just to see more photos.

Over the next few weeks I constantly thought about the photos and tried to understand their impact on me. Beri did not press me to come to see more of them. But James, I must be truthful, I soon wanted to see more; I needed see more. So I returned to see more such pictures. This is what I am embarrassed to admit to you, James. That I could not stay away--a need I had not recognized and did not fully understand.

When I went to Beri's apartment the next time, I hinted to him the increasing intensity of my sexual reactions to the photos over the past several weeks. I told Beri that I had never seen photos so arousing, not in any of my art history studies and not on the few porn sites I had watched with college friends.

"Your photos are so erotic," Beri. "For the viewer. Presumably also to the participants. No one looks forced. They all seem to be highly engaged and pleased to be seen in this way. Even euphoric at times. I want you to tell me about them. Your photos suggest they all have secret lives. Do they want us to understand? I like to think that they would like to talk with us to describe what they were feeling and ask us what we were feeling in seeing them."

After having shown me this very first set of photos I remember that Beri said to me, "Nor, there is a lot more I can show you, share with you, a young woman who appreciates the erotic and is not afraid to investigate it out to very edge."

I asked him to tell me more about how he made the photos. He confirmed again that these were all photos that he had taken. He said he knew all the couples in the photos. The woman in Venice is a distant cousin and he came to know her well before she was married. They were Introduced by his grandmother. They found they shared tastes in art and literature and especially erotic content in both.One thing led to another and finally to the photographs.

The couple in Amsterdam were introduced to Beri by a photographer he had met at a biennial art fair in Kassel, Germany. When Beri was next in Amsterdam the friend had shown him erotic photos from his collection. Several years later the friend introduced Beri to the couple there who readily told him of their interest in being photographed in erotic situations -- and with other friends.

The Japanese couple Beri met during his summer in Osaka where he was similarly introduced to them by someone in a photography club who Beri had met at a local exhibition. He said he sees them when they are in the states periodically and wondered if I would like to meet them. Perhaps I would consider joining them in a photograph. Beri said that the woman from Amsterdam and the black man in the photo in Venice also are in the U.S. from time to time and he knew would be willing to pose for additional erotic photographs with attractive and willing Americans. Perhaps I would be interested sometime.

Beri explained that he never directly pays the people he photographs. He said there are always people around who are excited about the possibility of appearing in such photos once they see examples. Leading photographers in a particular city or region often have names of prospects to suggest, he said. The relationship usually begins with Beri showing an individual or a couple examples of his own photos, perhaps starting with formal portrait photographs and then a few examples of more private poses, perhaps a woman in negligee or topless at the beach, and then finally a few of the kind Beri has been showing me.

He keeps such photos on his lap top as he travels. And then, if the prospects find those interesting, if he judges they find them very arousing, he asks them if they might be interested in posing for such photographs. "And we work out the details. I assure them that no one will ever be given access to the negatives or be given a print except with their permission and that they will receive several copies that they may share if they wish but not for sale. This is all in a contract they sign."

Beri and I continued to see each other after that first time he showed me some of his erotic photos. I still found him good company. He was smart, informed, confident and passionate regarding art, especially photography, and especially all things erotic. And I admit that side of him appealed to me during that time. I often excused his darker side by saying to myself that he cared for me and I could learn from him. I knew that to some extent I was fooling myself.

When I next went to his apartment, Beri showed me two more series of photos. As we viewed these, Beri as usual asked me for my reactions. I preferred not to respond. I told him to just let me draw pleasure from the photos, not to pressure me; I said I might respond when I felt less keyed up, more settled.

For the first series that day he began with a group of four of his photos -- a middle class family, all blond, probably Dutch, seemingly in their living room, a windmill visible through a side window. An attractive comfortable couple, probably in their mid forties, holding hands, a beautiful young woman between them. We assume she is their daughter. Standing on their right is an older man. The grandfather? Taller than the rest of them,he is a commanding presence, resembling the Swedish actor Max von Sydow. Perhaps they are celebrating the young girl's high school graduation, or 18th birthday. They might be preparing to go out to celebrate the event, taking a few photos for the family scrapbook before they leave. All seem proud and pleased to be together.

The second photo destroys our first impression. The same four people but the girl is sitting on a chair in front of the other three. Her clothing is gone, all of it. Her legs are spread and she is touching her sex, one finger in, taking pleasure but perhaps also responding to the request or the demands of one or more of the three adults. Everyone is smiling except for the girl who has her head back and her eyes closed. Her free arm is reaching up and back to her parents. The grandfather is between the two parents with an arm around each of them. Could this really be the relationship of these four?